Spicer: Trump Won’t Ban Individual News Outlets From White House

Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said on Friday that President-elect Donald Trump will not ban individual media outlets from the White House as he did on the campaign trail, when he banned news outlets from attending his rallies.

“There’s a big difference between a campaign where it is a private venue using private funds and a government entity,” Spicer said Friday at an event hosted by Politico.

He said suggestions that Trump’s administration will change the way press briefings are run are just “conversations.”

“We have a respect for the press when it comes to the government, that that is something that you can’t ban an entity from,” Spicer said, as quoted by Politico. “That’s what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship.”

On the campaign trail, Trump routinely excoriated the “dishonest” media, calling out publications and reporters by name during rallies. In February, he threatened to “open up” libel laws if elected to make it easier to sue news organizations.

Publications including The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico, The Huffington Post and other outlets that Trump claimed covered him unfairly were blacklisted from his campaign events during the election and only granted credentials again in September.